


Stretch Your Eyes

by larklure



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Clones, M/M, Not Beta Read, POV Bruce Wayne, Project Cadmus, Temporary Amnesia, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:59:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24639550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larklure/pseuds/larklure
Summary: "He's supposed to be better trained than this, better trained than this sudden burst of nearly blinding panic would suggest. But of all the things he can recollect, the sixteen digit passcode he just reset on the cave’s computer, the laundry list of supplies Alfred requested for a new cowl mockup, the look on Clark’s face when he had for the third time in as many months spilled his champagne down the reporter’s back in an “accident”— how he got inside this tank is not one of them. The seconds draw out like years as Bruce tries to quell the rapid droning of his heart and the cemented understanding that he can hardly move his arms, let alone muster the will to break free of whatever watery prison he’s found himself in."
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	1. A Grip That Will Hold

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies in advance for grammatical errors, this work will likely be rife with them! Thank you to those who stay to read a chapter or two, or who stay for more in the future! Your time is appreciated, I hope you enjoy this little wandering story.

Bruce is brought to awareness by the sensation of an encompassing wetness and an incredible urge to retch. Reality clarifies the moment he opens his eyes and, through the shock and the sting, sees his own reflection across the inside of glass view screen. He can guess from the mask covering his lower face and from the way his throat strains inside him, that something has been shoved down the length of his esophagus. There’s no indication of where he is, or why he’s submerged, and it takes Bruce's entire focus to catalogue detail around him. He can't see much more than the narrow view his reflection allows, but it's enough to know that Bruce is entirely naked, restrained at the waist and wrists by thick metallic bands, and alone.

If he had enough breath in his lungs he’d scream.

He's supposed to be better trained than this, better trained than this sudden burst of nearly blinding panic would suggest. But of all the things he can recollect, the sixteen digit passcode he just reset on the cave’s computer, the laundry list of supplies Alfred requested for a new cowl mockup, the look on Clark’s face when he had for the third time in as many months spilled his champagne down the reporter’s back in an “accident”— how he got inside this tank is not one of them. The seconds draw out like years as Bruce tries to quell the rapid droning of his heart and the cemented understanding that he can hardly move his arms, let alone muster the will to break free of whatever watery prison he’s found himself in.

Bruce is physically shaken from his panic by a crash from some indeterminate middle distance. The impact has enough force to rattle his bones and jar the tube in his throat. The blow is followed by a second, weaker blow and then a third. 

Whatever fluid Bruce is submerged in, combined with his addled mind, makes it nearly impossible to guess the distance of those blows. But it's clear the sound is coming from the right, close enough that the after effects can be heard, the ripple of bent metal, the creak as whatever foundational elements bend and give way, the echoing of a long empty space filling with a single explosive sound.

A fourth and final blow lands, followed shortly by the ear piercing sound of metal being shorn in half. Bruce barely has enough slack to move his arms, but the very tip of his right middle finger can reach the metallic side of his casing. Without true sound, Bruce has to rely on the vibrations of the wall of whatever capsule he’s in. For a moment there's stillness, enough to suggest that whatever that violence was has passed or subsided. 

The shock he feels when a figure appears on the other side of the view glass is sudden, stabbing.

His terror is short lived. Some motion occurs and, with a gracelessness that Bruce had not expected, the front of the cell drops to the floor and the view plate shatters. Water or whatever Bruce was held in rushes out of the cavity and into the open space, sucking at Bruce’s limbs and immediately sending off a torrent of steam. The air, when it finally touches his naked skin, is thoroughly chilled, crashing against him like a beached wave on a particularly rough morning tide. 

The person on the other side is, unfathomably, Clark— dressed in a hospital gown, the front thoroughly drenched and sporting a spray of black that could be half a dozen liquids. 

Bruce can do nothing but gag explosively as the tube in his throat begins to spasm. Clark must realize his stress, placing a steading hand to his chest as whatever automatic systems are in place began the excruciating task of retracting the length of tubing. 

His first true breath comes with newfound pinpricks of pain. His throat is a wreck and though he desperately wants to ask what the fuck is happening he can’t even muster a groan.

“Good god, Bruce, what the _hell_ did they do to you?” Clark asks, holding Bruce’s torso up with both arms. At first it seems like an intimate hold, until Bruce realizes that Clark is barely standing upright himself, his legs trembling so badly that it would have caused the two of them to collapse, were it not for the support of the metal shackles pinning Bruce inside.

Bruce had, in one of his moments of paranoia, taught them both a method of communication for a moment when one of them was indisposed. It wasn’t elegant, but when deployed it could convey some sense of meaning in a hurry. Bruce used one of his restrained hands to press a syncopated series of taps into Clark’s wet forearm. 

_“Thank you_.”

It takes a moment for Clark to catch up, perhaps distracted by the same half a million things that Bruce has barely kept himself from thinking. Where are they? How did they end up in these tanks, stripped of their armor and bound in ways that Bruce had never thought to consider. The sensation of the metallic bands on his wrist are enough to spark the crushing feeling of that water all over again. He’s worked himself to the edge of genuine panic attack as once again he’s freed by Clark.

_“Often,”_ the man taps back on Bruce’s chest, utterly breaking Bruce’s train of thought and stopping him cold for a moment. After some time parsing, Bruce takes the “Often” to be a miss-rendered “of course”. Clark never was all that interested in studying the patterns, something Bruce would need to remedy, later.

Out loud Clark asks, “can you speak?”

_“No,”_ Bruce taps, motioning with a tilt of his head. The simple motion of his head falling back sends a web of pain down his esophagus, enough to garner a slight gasp from him. Clark looks to him and down to his throat, his gaze caught there.

_“_ I thought as much. Do you have any idea where we are?”

_“I thought you were gonna tell me.”_

Clark shakes his head, not quite smiling but just on the verge of it. There is a palpable lightness to his posture, even under his fatigue. Relief at being free.

“Come on, let’s see if we can ask someone for directions.”

Bruce looks down at himself, where the only thing covering him are metal restraints and a thin sheen of watery residue too dense to clump into droplets. 

“Ah, uh. Maybe freedom and a change of clothes first.”

Clark tries to pry the thick metal around Bruce’s wrist open, but whatever was done to him, or whatever he expended trying to break free, has sapped the strength from his limbs. 

_Control panel? Release switch?_

“Right, um.” The confusion is clear in Clark’s hesitation as he looks at the control panel. Bruce can’t so much as turn his head without causing a strata of pain. He waits, knowing that Clark will figure something out. 

He wasn’t expecting Clark to turn, pick up a nearby lab stool, and bring it down on the control panel with a single motion. 

Despite everything Bruce knows about circuitry and security measures, the blow triggers something internal that releases Bruce’s restraints. He falls like a puppet with snipped strings, slumping fully against Clark. 

_Elegant_ , Bruce presses into Clark’s chest, where his weakened limbs have landed. He wishes, not for the first time, that he wasn't stark naked. He felt the heat radiating off Clark’s skin like a sun lamp. In spite of their immediate situation, Bruce felt himself stir at the sensation alone, at the proximity of Clark and he somehow managed to smell just faintly of hay. 

Of all times for this...

If Clark notices Bruce’s sudden change in attention he doesn’t say anything as he moves, carrying Bruce to another lab stool. He leaves Bruce there, clutching onto the stool with one hand and covering himself with the other, while Clark goes off in search of clothing. 

While Clark wanders the room, Bruce turns meticulously slowly, taking in the space. The floor itself is solid, lacking any visible perforations, yet none of the water from the pod remains to be seen. The walls are the sterile white and green color scheme of most medical facilities. Besides Bruce’sthere are nine other similar holding chambers, all of which sit empty save one at the far end half full of water, and the one which Clark unfurled from the inside like flower petals. Whatever operation was underway, it was either barely started or barely finished.

After a few minutes and some noticeably Midwestern curses, Clark returns with a sterile gown and fabric booties. Bruce notes the construction of the gown. Standard medical grade, maybe thicker than normal, but that could account more for the reduced temperature of the room rather than any clear indication of manufacturer or location. The make and sizing is definitely human, ruling out half a dozen theories Bruce had worked up while Clark went in search of clothing. 

Despite any visible signs, the room is definitely subterranean, with an abundance of load bearing support columns and plenty of ventilation. There’s a single door to and from the room, and wherever they are must have something more exciting going on, as in the time since Clark’s loud rending from his own capsule, there hasn’t been so much as footsteps coming from outside the room. 

Bruce takes a moment to check out the other pod-capsules. The rest really are empty, showing no sign of recent activity. Whatever series of events had caused them to end up here, Bruce can’t begin to guess the who’s or the why’s. 

“Read to go?” Clark asks, offering his arm like a boy scout helping a senior citizen cross a busy intersection. The image isn't lost on Clark himself, who laughs softly when Bruce threads his arm through Clark’s own. 

They make hardly four or five paces out the door before the sound of a distant, thunderous explosion reverberates through the floor and echoes down the vacant hallways. A silent alarm initiants, as in the corner of each hallway and beside each door, a small red light flares to life, blinking a rabbit’s heartbeat.

“Where to?” Clark asks, looking at Bruce. This close, Bruce can smell the sweat on Clark, can hear the rasp of their clothes as they brush together. It’s enough to be distracting, and this time Clark does notice, waiting longer than he normally would for Bruce to reply.

_What can you hear?_

Clark takes a moment to listen, then turns right and left as though to help calibrate his hearing. 

“I can’t hear much more than you can, probably”

_Hmm,_ Bruce taps (yes, Clark had laughed when he’d made a signal for that) _we might as well walk to the source of the explosions. Maybe there will even be someone friendly at the other end._

  
  
  


They walk through more identical hallways than Bruce knew could exist in the world. The only further indication of their location is found in the floor labels, blazoned in a blocky English font. 

The clues end there. Each floor they climb is labeled with the floor number, but nothing else changes. It’s not for three floors before the hallways show any indication that something is amiss. Papers and detritus cover the floor, signs of egress clear in the paths left through the debris. Clark follows them unprompted, as the sound of blows ring louder with each flight of stairs they climb.

Another floor up and the explosions are distinct and easy to interpret. Most are blows of some kind, striking against the facility walls or crashing into something big moving about above them. Whatever is happening is strong enough to rattle Bruce’s bones just from the vibrations alone. He’s not for the first time wondered if they’ll even be able to escape this way, or if they’re walking into a disaster neither of them are strong enough to counter. 

The next floor ushers in visible signs of structural damage, accompanied by a thick plumes of dust which settle on Bruce’s still damp skin, leaving him caked in it by the time Clark pulls them up one last flight of stairs and into what must be a hangar bay. 

Across the bay stands, by all rights, a Doomsday knockoff. 

He’s rounded, squishy looking and dripping ichor from giant pores in his face. The malice remains unchanged, perhaps even flaring higher when the beast spots their movement and leaps toward them. It’s enough for Bruce’s blood to stop cold in his veins, for Clark to falter in his stride. Even fully powered Superman had nearly fallen to Doomsday, neither Clark or Bruce as they were could last for more than a few seconds. Clark half turns to run, Bruce nothing but dead weight at his side. 

The beast, whatever incarnation of Doomsday it might claim to be, is stopped from charging at them by a lash of a fire-bright lasso, followed, blessedly, by Diana herself. She makes art of throttling the creature into the hangar bay floor. The source of the explosive blows becomes apparent, as Diana’s assault on the creature’s nearly impervious skin echoes across the bay, shuttering the walls as she corners it there, bashing until the creature finally drops to the floor, prone. 

“Diana!” Clark calls, beginning again to stumble in the woman’s direction, before a cry from further down the long hangar draws all their attention. Nearly the length of a city block down, shrouded slightly by the thick film of dust, another Doomsday-like creature hurtles through the reinforced cement wall. This one is different, spiked and more horrific to look at than the one Diana had subdued. It’s tumbling body gouges long fissures in the floor as it slides to a halt.

Whoever had sent it through the wall steps out shortly after, still shrouded in the dust of the atomized concrete. It takes a moment for Bruce’s brain to catch up with what his eyes are seeing, as Superman leaps from the dust cloud and meets the thorn crowned Doomsday head-on. 

  
Beside Bruce, in a tone that captures every one of Bruce’s errant thoughts, Clark utters an emphatic and resounding “What the _fuck_?”


	2. So Tight and Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short update to keep the story moving!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Work and Chapter titles are taken from Agnes Obel's "Stretch Your Eyes"!

_ Imposter _ , Bruce’s mind screams, even as the Superman through the haze of dust becomes clearer. This other Superman is resplendent in the crimson and cobalt of Clark’s kryptonian suit. If this is an imposter, a replacement, they’re incredibly good at appearing like Clark. The strength is there, the posturing, the way that Clark seems to move away from blows before they even begin to fly, his advanced eyesight perceiving motion to such a degree that he can turn out of their path like a cat. 

The difference, the one that Bruce notices above all the similarities, the one that makes him pause in confusion, is how confident this Superman is. His footing is cleaner, his stance when he actually has to touch down isn’t perfect, but miles better than the greenhorn Clark had been (and sometimes still was), unused to combat that required intentional moves over blunt force and luck. This Superman is the version of Clark Bruce had been working toward, all these past, firmly but not unkindly coercing Clark into the Cave’s open gym. It had been a particularly difficult task, trying to train a man impervious to nuclear blasts how to actually throw a punch, and how to take one. 

Whatever incarnation of Bruce exists doubled in this world, in whatever alteration of reality they’ve woken up in, he has done his job very well. Doomsday’s clone, even vicious, bespeckled with thorns and spikes of bone, can’t last long against the competent attentions of a Superman trained to be a fighter.

Wind whistling catches Bruce’s attention, and he turns his gaze in time to find Diana mid leap, soaring toward Clark and Bruce in a single bound. The landing is elegant and Bruce would have called it careless, were it not for the look of deep unease on her face as she lands. 

“I thought there were no more—” she says, clearly thinking them civilians of some kind. She’s the Diana Bruce knows, the trace elements of divinity there, the notion that this woman is just a touch beyond human reckoning. If she’s a rendered copy, an alternate reality double, she’s so similar to Bruce’s Diana that in the moment of her landing he knows without a doubt that he’ll never be able to identify a difference. It’s in her energy, the look of caution on her face as she processes Bruce and Clark stood there, Clark in a hospital gown splattered with hydraulic fluid, and Bruce bruised and filthy.

Her moment of realization of who they are and they sudden way it brings Diana to a halt tells Bruce whatever is going on is as deeply unsettling for her as it is for him. 

“What is this?” 

Her hand is on her lasso in seconds, and before Bruce can even tell his worn out body to flinch, the unfurling length of her lasso is spun about them like spider’s silk. It feels simultaneously light as a feather and made of lead, compression the two of them so close that Clark has to shift behind Bruce to keep from crushing him with the taller man’s shoulder. It’s the first time Bruce’s been on the receiving end of the lasso’s treatment, and it’s immediately apparent why those made its captives yearn for almost immediate release. She’s not even uttered a word, but Bruce can already feel the compulsion of the lasso working into his body, soaking into him and drenching his bones in its desire for his truth.

“Speak your names so I may know them,” Diana commands, even as the lasso begins to strip them of their defenses.

“Clark Kent,” Clark gasps out after a strained moment. He’s breathless, his chest heaving behind Bruce’s back. Whether he tried to fight it, or the lasso works slower on kryptonians is hard to tell, but he sounds relieved after his words pass.

The force which the lasso bears onto Bruce's admittedly weakened body is enough to press a rough, waspish “Bruce Wayne” through clenched teeth, tearing at his own throat on the way.

“Di, please,” Clark says once Bruce has finished, shifting his body so his flank stands between Diana and Bruce. It proves to draw Diana’s open gaze to Clark. 

“Something’s been done to Bruce, he can barely stand on his own, let alone speak.” 

Despite knowing the truth of this Diana, Bruce has never seen a look from her like this. The tightness around her eyes, the pinched brow, a pallor to her cheeks that he didn’t think she was physically capable of showing. It all points to a mixture of concern and uncertainty, the pair so equally measured that perhaps neither can win. Whatever she’s thinking, her grip on the lasso remains steady, even as she lifts a hand to her ear piece, clicking the line open with a single tap.

“Batman, I need your assistance in Cadmus’ secondary vehicle bay,” with a glance she looks over her shoulder, where in the interim the Other Superman has finished with his Doomsday clone, trussing him in cuffs bent from the exposed metal reinforcing pulled from the exposed wall. 

  
  


“Superman has just handled the last of the clones.”

Clark knows enough to remain silent as Diana waits for her Batman and Superman to arrive, and even if Bruce could, not would not be the time to try and speak. Whatever power the lasso was made with, it doesn’t care to differentiate between truth that is asked for and truth that is divulged. Simply touching it elicits the compulsion to speak as such, or bear pain.

  
  


A tense, vibrating silence lasts until Superman by, and then Batman on foot, arrive beside Diana. 

Their expressions make for the perfect mirror. Before Bruce and Clark stand themselves, dressed in their suits, matching their closed-off posture so completely that Bruce struggles against the wave of disassociation that crashes into him. Up close there’s no mistaking him, the Other Superman is in fact Clark, disheveled perhaps by the fight, but nonetheless the man in the flesh. Beside him, Clark pulls in a breath, clearly trying not to speak but shaken by the sight. His double remains petrified in the air, confusion and deep disgust apparent on his face. 

It’s the Other Bruce who’s reaction is most telling. Even clad in armor densely woven enough to stop a bullet, this Bruce can’t curb his reaction fast enough to prevent someone so intimate clocking it. It’s the twitch of the lips, the darting of the eyes between both their face, the way this Bruce's hands move, triggering a mechanism that induces a status reading. It's one Bruce designed with Alfred, one meant for moments of duress, when Bruce couldn't be sure if he was under the effects of fear toxin or other hallucinogens. For this Other Bruce, the reading must tell him what he doesn't want to know. The way his mouth closes in a snarl is the same wicked unease married with a truly horrible realization. One that, upon seeing the Doomsday clones, Bruce had considered himself but hadn't wanted to even begin expressing.

Bruce is beaten to the punch only by his mirrored self, who breaks the silence with typical bat fashion. 

“They’re clones, more of Cadmus’s toys” Batman growls, stepping into the space segmented by Diana’s lasso. 

T he other Superman remains still, suspended in the air. His eyes focus, peeling back the world, no doubt looking at them in waves lengths beyond human perception. 

“What are your names and how old are you currently. Tell us, where were your places of birth?” Batman bites out.

“Clark Kent, I’m from Smallville, Kansas but I was born on the planet Krypton. I just turned 32 last June, on the 18th.” Clark nearly groans after he’s finished, the lasso releasing him from the strongest of it’s exertions.

“Bruce Wayne.” The lasso’s compulsion speaks through Bruce, though he’s willful enough to control how much it gives. “41, Gotham memorial.”

Whatever answers Other Bruce was hoping for, he gives no reaction. 

“Clark’s clone mentioned that this Bruce was injured, it would be wise to not push him too far,” Diana offers, though her grip on the lasso remains.

They both turn to Superman, who’s dropped from the air and has stepped close to Bruce and Clark, holding out a hand to run along Bruce’s arm. It’s an almost intimate gesture, marred by how firm he presses into the meat of Bruce’s bicep, and how the Clark behind him tenses at the motion. 

“They look as you’d hope, on the inside. It’s nothing like with the Doomsdays, no alterations to their biology as I can see,” Superman offers this to the others, though Bruce appreciates the information all the same. 

It’s a small blessing, knowing that whatever this Cadmus had done to the Doomsday clones to render them as such horrible beasts wasn’t apparently visible within them as well. Clones they may be, but not the wicked kind (not yet, at least). Whatever mold they may have come from did it’s job in building them correctly, or at least, not overtly inhuman. 

“Something is different, though. Bruce’s clone is brand new. There’s no recent fractures or altered bone density, no visible scarification as… as the original.”

The hand on Bruce’s arms makes sense, the other Clark feeling for what his eyes couldn’t spot, the array of knife and bullet marks chipped out of Bruce’s body. He’s ashamed to say he hadn’t noticed, not even the telltale ache of his right knee, the leg that had been bothering him the most recently. Perhaps this is a programmed intention. It would be hard to raise a suitable clone if they immediately found an error in their own existence by simply looking in the mirror and not seeing their skin how they remember it. Whatever programming had been implemented isn’t strong enough to keep the illusion once the other Clark’s observation breaks it. The pain of those prior injuries, the tightness of scar tissue doesn’t return, but Bruce’s recollection of it does.

What he can feel, the sensations that are coming from his body now, are nothing more than what he woke to find. The trauma of his throat implant, the muscular exhaustion and unresponsiveness of his weakened limbs. 

“And the Clark clone?” Batman asks. Whether unsurprised or at the moment unbothered by his clone’s lack of visible dismemberment, he made no comment of it. 

“The same as Bruce, like new. Though if I looked at myself right now it would be an identical scan. I don’t develop scar tissue. Maybe Victor could be of some more help, seeing how old their cells are, how long their metabolisms have been active. 

“One last question,” Batman says, looking from the Clark at his side to the two Clones with an expression that, if Bruce hadn’t known better, could have been mistaken with concern. “What’s the last thing you remember?”


	3. Around My Throat With

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A second update today because I got impatient and wanted to write more!

The lab compound in which they were made belongs to Cadmus, and from the little that Bruce could gleam from Diana and the originals, Cadmus is a high tech, US Government funded, largely covert operation. This means the battle with the Doomsday clones had rendered the upper levels of the base (underground, as Bruce had predicted) cracked open like a walnut, revealing what had once posed as a regular aircraft hangar to be much, much more than that. The vehicle bay they were in was the bottom level of a pair of such bays, the crown of a compound stacked like a rabbit warren and equally as complex. 

Bruce could catch the beaming sunlight, even before they made it to the top floor, sneaking through cracks in the floor. Something had torn a rend in the ceiling between the levels, down the entire length, allowing sunlight in through thick streams that radiated the space with warm yellow tones. The light was broken up by thick clouds of cement dust that continued to float in the air, and columns of smoke which rose from the decimated shells of vehicles and scorched supply pallets.

Their journey to the surface was hampered by their confinement. Bruce and Clark were left within the lasso of truth, the easiest way to keep them both secured. One, because it could restrain the kryptonian without the use of kryptonite. Effective as the mineral was, it had the nasty side effect of impacting the Original Clark as much as it was likely to affect his clone. The second, because Bruce had no way of breaking out of the Lasso. It wasn’t tied in a knot, or composed of locked chains that could be slipped, unlocked or broken. The lasso held the clones in place because Diana wanted it to, and that was not something that Bruce would ever be able to break.

He spent the silent walk they took through the compound actively avoiding what he’d learned, what had come to pass in the intervening minutes. His efforts did little to stop the thoughts, something he should have known by now.

Bruce had guessed it, in one of the dozens of hypotheses he’d come to in that lab. He’d guessed that there was a chance he wasn’t the real Bruce. But guessing and knowing were vastly different. Something Bruce should have learned by now, something his career as Batman had confirmed time and again. There was no estimation in the world that could capture the reality of a thing. And that included feelings. That more than included the knowledge that he and Clark, who he couldn’t think of as anything but _his_ Clark, weren’t real, and the feeling of knowing that. By nature of their Originals' continued existence, they were redundant,and wrong. 

It didn’t stop Bruce from missing the feeling of the cowl, or from missing how the cowl turned him into Batman and removed from him facial expressions he had to control so carefully when he was left in the open. There was a nakedness to himself, beyond the literal, that was impossible to shake. He’d been peeled back, his makeup identified and clarified. He was a rendering of himself, as much as the Original Bruce was, but the difference came down to the how. Bruce had been made by crucible, by trauma as much as by any other means. But as a clone? These were machine spun limbs, memories borrowed or stolen, and kept in place by upload or download. A brain taught through acclimation rather than experience.

What Bruce couldn’t get past, despite everything, what Bruce couldn’t force his mind to not fixate on, was why _he_ was chosen to exist. 

Clark made complete sense. He was perhaps one of the most powerful beings in the solar system. He defied laws both literal and physical that defined human existence. He was the antithesis to notions so deeply ingrained in human consciousness that to defy them felt like the defiance of the entirety of human life. But he was good, pure in a way that didn’t need to be bleach white, to be free of blemishes. He wielded his powers with justice in mind because it made him happy to do so, because at the end of a long day he would wear this brilliant smile even as he washed sewage from his hair, or knocked dirt clumps from the bottom of his boots. 

To have that, to recreate that power, that goodness, and have it under your thumb? That idea was something Bruce once considered intimately. Back when Superman was an oddity, a being of inaccessible yet immediate presence. To control that, to wield that for the force of good? Bruce would have done whatever he could to bring that power to bear. But in the end he hadn’t wanted to, because he hadn’t needed to. Bruce had learned that Clark was better alone than any influence Bruce could force on him. 

It makes sense, in a way, how sick Bruce feels to consider that Cadmus had very much the opposite understanding of Clark. That one of him wasn't enough, that he was to be replicated and assembled in the dark, and in secret. A second son of Krypton, deprived of everything that made that title important but the photocopied memories of the original. 

It brought Bruce back to the why. Why were they made? A question so much more poignant to consider when you knew you were created by a person in a lab coat rather than the cosmic randomness of human reproduction. 

And why, in the end, had Bruce been chosen? He was as human as they came. Unique because how else would his genetics express themselves but how they had evolved to? If anything, what made Bruce exceptional was not something innate in his composition, but in his defiant, stubborn willpower, and a list of traumas so long they could have shrouded the Wayne manor grounds in sheets and sheets of paper.

What arose, then, was a notion of Cadmus’s intended use of their clones. Why make a copy of someone, particularly someone without a unique set of observable powers, and implant in them every memory of their original? An answer came to mind, simple as breathing, an answer that was easily explained because in the end Cadmus was under the hand of the US government. 

It was control. 

Remove a viper’s fangs and it is rendered indefensible, incapable of the lethality by which it functioned and for which it had evolved to exist. But raise a viper to think it was a viper, programmed to strike on commade without those fangs, to act when and as directed? Is that not the better of the two options?

Bruce had been made to ignore the changes in his body, to ignore that, for all things considered, he was a 41 year old man in a body newer than that of a baby fresh from the womb. If Cadmus could engineer a blindspot the size of Bruce’s body, what else could they design? How would they make Batman dance on his thread, puppeted around Gotham as though he were the real deal, only to be collapsable, only to have his autonomy revoked in ways that maybe he wouldn’t have even noticed. 

The worst part? The worst part was knowing that the Original Bruce was thinking this, that if his clone could come to such a conclusion, then the original surely would. Bruce and Clark couldn’t be trusted, because they were designed to fool themselves, to ignore their own bodies and the nature of their own births. How could they not be expected to have other latch keys, to harbor deeper programming with unknown triggers and equally unknown actions.

Suffice to say, this morning wasn’t the worst way Bruce had ever woken to. No, that was credited to many other mornings. But at the moment Bruce couldn’t recall the details of those, and the act of pondering on them brought on a melancholy Bruce didn’t know he was still capable of feeling. Introspection had never been one of the tools he’d honed for himself. Now, it seemed, he really could be his own therapist.

The irony was enough to make Bruce laugh, a single chuff that sounded by all rights like he’d choked on air.

It’s enough to immediately draw Clark to a stop, jolting them in their climb to the final level and causing the lasso to draw taut in Diana’s grip. 

“Are you okay, do you need water? I am concerned about you and would like that you be taken care of,” Clark says, the lasso drawing more from him than he’d likely wanted to voice. If this bothers him he doesn’t show it, looking more concerned than anything for Bruce.

_I’m fine,_ Bruce tapped into the other man’s side. _I was just thinking about something unimportant._ It seemed that partial lies were possible when Bruce didn’t speak, when he forced the lasso’s compulsion to exert itself through his body rather than his voice.

“Do we need to stop?” Diana asked not unkindly, coming back down a step to level herself with them. Bruce turned his head up as best he could to meet her gaze, shaking his head once. It was enough to get her to continue up the steps, though Clark hadn’t stopped watching Bruce out of the corner of his eye. 

The ground floor was as disastrous as Bruce might have guessed. The original Doomsday had been a ballistic missile on legs, weaving destruction on a scale that was on a magnitude measurable alongside any natural disaster. Cadmus fared better to some degree, considering that whatever version of Doomsday they’d cooked up didn’t seem to possess the raw unhinged strength of the original. The rend between the two levels could just as easily have been carved by Clark or Diana, hauling one of the Doomsdays through the reinforced concrete and metal in an effort to stun or subdue the creature.

The same can’t be said for the puncture wound in the roof the size and shape of a massive outline torn through the metal. It allows the sun to come down in a wash of light, catching the pair of clones and bathing them in the first sunlight of their lives. 

Bruce didn’t remember it quite like this. The sun striking his skin and setting off instance flushes of satisfaction. It’s like stepping into a stream of solid air, Bruce being buffeted by the light as it washes through him, easing the strain of the lasso around his body and the exhaustion of his limbs, worn out by exertion by disuse. 

He doesn’t realize what’s happening until Clark turns to him.

“Bruce, you’re glowing.”

Bruce turns, and can’t help but notice that it’s _Clark_ who is aglow, the side effect of sunlight charging his cells, granting him his superpowered status. It’s an aura that encapsulates Clark, filling him up like a fresh charge. And perhaps it is because of this very reason why the sunlight feels so heavenly to Bruce. This is the first natural light to ever charge Clark, or to ever touch Bruce’s skin.

_You’re the one who’s a spotlight_ , Bruce tapped out. Whatever glow Clark must be seeing must simply be his own aura refracting off Bruce.

“No, Bruce, you are seriously glowing. It’s coming off you in beams.”

Diana turned at their conversation, her skin alight with the midday sun but rendered in expected tans and gold. Bruce catches the moment she sees him, her eyes wide, her grip on the lasso faltering for the first time. 

“Clark, Bruce,” she calls, bringing the attention of the Originals as they marked their way through the wreckage. They turn immediately at the sound. Original Clark is to them in an instant, Bruce not far behind. 

  
They watch the pair of clones for a moment, before resoundingly and emphatically, the Original Clark says, “What the _fuck_?”


End file.
